Ulcer bug might not always have plaqued humans

The bacterium that causes stomach ulcers might not have been with humans forever, a new study suggests, contradicting a long-held assumption. Comparing pieces of DNA from Helicobacter pylori, scientists discovered that strains from Peru resemble those from Spain and not those from eastern Asia.

"My favorite interpretation of this finding is that the Spanish brought H. pylori to Peru when they conquered the Incan empire nearly 500 years ago and that the bacterium was not present in the ancestors who crossed the Bering Strait from Asia more than 10,000 years ago," said Douglas E. Berg, Ph.D., the Alumni Professor of Molecular Microbiology and professor of genetics.

Click to see entire article

University, Barnes-Jewish open Heart Care Institute

The School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have opened the Heart Care Institute to make it easier for West County residents to access a full spectrum of nationally recognized heart services in one setting.

The institute, which provides outpatient cardiology services, is located in a new medical office building at 1020 N. Mason Road, just south of Olive Boulevard. Because of the institute, heart disease prevention, detection, rehabilitation and clinical investigation are more accessible than ever, said cardiologist Craig K. Reiss, M.D., associate professor of medicine and medical director of the institute, adding that the institute is supplementing services currently offered at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Click to see entire article

Student to attend Nobel laureates meeting

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected Yiing Lin, an M.D./Ph.D. student at the School of Medicine, to spend a week with 66 Nobel prize winners. DOE is sponsoring 36 American graduate students in biology, physics and chemistry to attend the 50th anniversary meeting of Nobel laureates June 26-30 in Lindau, Germany.

Since 1951, laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine have met in Lindau to discuss important issues in their fields with students from around the world. This year, some 600 students from Europe, Africa, Asia and North America will hear lectures and participate in daily small-group discussions.

Lin will be the only participant from Missouri. He is doing his doctoral research in the laboratory of Gary D. Stormo, Ph.D., professor of genetics. The group is developing new tools for classifying the working parts of genomes -- the DNA instructions for building an organism. The main focus is on regions called promoters, which regulate gene activity and therefore protein production. Through statistical analysis, Lin aims to determine the structure of some known regulatory sequences to obtain key information for recognizing unknown promoters in genomes. This approach also might produce new tools for fine-tuning gene expression.

"Yiing has been in my lab for only eight months, but he has quickly advanced our project, improving on the techniques we were using and moving in some new directions," Stormo said. "His combined M.D. and Ph.D. degrees and his expertise in computational methods will make him a rare scientist with unlimited potential for biomedical research in the coming years."

Employees can sign final beam of care center

Through Monday, May 22, Washington University Medical Center faculty, staff and students are invited to sign the last steel beam of the Ambulatory Care Center before it is lifted into place. The topping out beam is displayed near the covered walkway and construction site near Parkview Place.

At 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, May 24, the three final steel beams of the center, which also houses The Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center, will be set in place. Medical school employees and students are invited to watch the topping out from Euclid Avenue, south of the construction site.

When the three final steel beams are set, construction of the center will be 40 percent complete, said Dave Gough, project manager for J. S. Alberici. The new building has 6,500 structural steel beams, which took 60 ironworkers 75,000 work hours to construct.

The expected completion date of the facility is November 2001.